Visiting John Allan in Exeter

I took a selection of items from the ‘GreenHouse Ceramics Collection’, including an assortment of gravel tempered plain ware (a baluster pot, rims and handles, glazed and unglazed) as well as some prized pieces of sgrafitto.

It was such a joy and pleasure to have someone else look at the pieces and offer up some response, explanations and information.

John was particularly interested in the baluster pot sherd. The bottom half of this tall jar, a piece 5 inches tall with a diameter of 4 inches. I talked to him about the pot I saw in Virginia with Karen Shriver at the Flowerdew Hundred collection. That one had been identified as being dated around 1625. John commented that these pots were only made in the 1600’s and not any later, so my sherd is quite a find!

We discussed the sgraffito pieces in the context of the designs that were being produced in the 1600’s and alongside a book that John gave me – a 2005 Devonshire Association publication which included an article part written by John about a site in Bideford that was excavated on the former Stella Maris convent school site. Here 17^th and 18^th Century pottery was found and photographs and drawings had been produced of the sgrafitto (and plainware) found there, it’s distinctive and common patterns. It was possible to look at these images with my sgrafitto sherds to indentify which patterns and designs featured. These include the geometric, leaves, floral, and spiral patterns. John explained how a compass was used to layout the points for leaves so there was a uniform shape and size all the way around a vessel such as a plate.

At the end of the visit, John was encouraging me to keep adding to the collection – and though I might consider some time to donate some pieces to someone else’s collection - he does not know of another collection from the Instow area, so mine is the first and deserves to be continued for some time yet.

My North Devon Pottery collection grows a bit, in bits!

My collection of North Devon pottery was added to in January. I already have some complete plainware jugs with slip around the rim, probably 19th century, although this has not been verified.

I now have found some sherds on the coast, a mixture of glazed plainware (different colours but mainly olive green glaze) and a couple of pieces of sgrafitto. Very exciting, and some of it looks like the photos of the finds I was shown in America! It felt really great to be back on home territory and find equally old pieces on the beaches here.

I went to visit Doug Fitch in his studio near Crediton to show him my collection and to talk about my trip to Virginia and North Carolina. Doug was very intrigued by it all and enthusiastically showed me some of his collection – he has quite a collection of North Devon Pottery and is a huge fan and advocate of it. His own work is highly influenced, producing beautiful pots featuring slipware and sgrafitto.

One sherd, a chunky and heavy piece of plainware with a handle was Doug’s favourite and he couldn’t put it down. I was even treated to a demonstration on his wheel of making a pot with a pulled over handle over the rim, to explain how the rim of the pot represented by the sherd was formed. He also said you can tell the maker of a pot by the handle – the size of it is unique and depends on the maker’s hand size.

As always a fascinating visit and a treat. Thank you Doug for being so generous with both information and enthusiasm.

2011 so far...

I have been working on various things so far this year, writing my report for the Winston Churchill Trust, visiting the Museum of North Devon and Barnstaple to talk to curator Ruth Spires about their collection and adding to my own collection.

I spoke to Ruth before Christmas about my fellowship trip and what I discovered in Virginia and North Carolina. Ruth told me that someone studying for a Phd (Alice Forward of Cardiff University) was visiting from Wales in January so I arranged to come back again at the same time so we could exchange information, finds and notes. I actually visited the Museum on February 3rd – when I arrived Alice was in the covered yard at the Museum with David Dawson, who has 40 years experience of identifying pottery. They both had their heads buried in boxes of sherds and it was quite a sight as there are rows and rows of boxes and boxes of finds. Ruth told me that a lot are from an archaeological dig in the 80’s when the new library site in Barnstaple was being developed.

We all went into the main Museum and compared sherds – I shared some recent finds from the North Devon Coast and Alice had some wonderful pieces of sgrafitto ware from the Valley between Swansea and Cardiff. David identified a couple of my sgraffito pieces as being 17th Century.

It was fascinating talking to him as he can identify a pot’s form and size from a relatively small piece.

I will return to the Museum some time soon and take a look at their collection. I will need a few hours to spare as it is so large but it is quite a significant collection of pottery from Barnstaple and Bideford and area.

Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

During the last week of the Fellowship I had an appointment to visit Kelly Ladd, curator at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s archaeological collections. This was exciting because I had already been to Williamsburg during the first week of my trip and I was so pleased that Eric Klingelhofer suggested that I return to the town and see another collection.

To quote the Foundation’s website “(the Foundation)….conducts original research on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century colonial archaeology and material culture,…..The Department also oversees the largest colonial-period archaeological collection in the United States, consisting of several million objects and fragments recovered during more than 60 years of excavation; extensive comparative historic-period faunal and archaeobotanical collections; and the Martin’s Hundred collection of early seventeenth-century material culture” It is the last sentence about Martin’s Hundred collection that is particularly relevant to the North Devon pottery finds.

Martin’s Hundred was one of the earliest 17^th century plantations, located along the James River and was settled in 1619 by the English. Richard Carter bought the land in the early 1700s and built on this earlier site.

Kelly had pulled a lot of finds for me when I arrived and they were split into 2 categories – 18^th century plainware and first quarter 17^th century sgrafitto ware. The former, pottery sherds were excavated in Williamsburg itself and the latter were found at Carter Grove, Martin’s Hundred. We talked a lot about the plainware sherds and the colouring of them – I pointed out that it seemed unusual for the North Devon plainware to have grey in it, Kelly said it was a result of the oxidation that occurs during firing (due to the position of the vessel in the kiln and the firing temperature), which gives the red clay a striking grey ‘core’ running through the middle like a liquorice allsort.

The 17^th century sgrafitto ware from Martin’s Hundred was beautiful and amazing to be able to hold something that old that came from North Devon – the finds were of the signature yellow colour glaze with both floral and wavy patterns. Interestingly Kelly also identified what the Foundation believes to be local copies of North Devon slipware in amongst the collection, some of which were more of an orange colour glaze.
Fascinating to think that in the 1600's, North Devon slipware was being copied and they liked the sgrafitto so much to create their own version.

Further reference can be made to the Martin’s Hundred site in a book of the same title written by eminent British archaeologist Ivor Noel Hume, which is a fascinating account of how he and his team excavated the site and their archaeological practices.

Photographs were taken by Dave Green and reproduced By permission of Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Archaeological Collections.

History and Mysteries

Last Thursday there was an expedition to the South of Roanoke Island, to Hatteras and Ocracoke Islands. Our new friend Tom offered to drive Dave and I down to both places in a day trip and I had told Tom that I needed to visit Scott Dawson at the History and Mysteries Museum in Buxton, near Hatteras, about 50 miles south of Manteo.

Warren who works on the Elizabeth 2 replica ship at the Island Festival Park had told me about Scott and suggested that I go and meet him as he has some artefacts that could be North Devon Pottery. I had called Scott a couple of days before to see when would be a good day to visit and told him about my fellowship and what I was studying, he said he had some North Devon pottery and would get some finds ready for me to see.

With great excitement we set off with Tom and got to Buxton around 11am. Scott was a great character and gushed forth with information as soon as we went inside. The Museum was at the back of the office and though quite small was bursting with printed information on the walls and images and had display cabinets full of finds from the immediate area. There were also copies of documents written by the English on their voyages of discovery and an Algonquian dictionary. Scott impressively talked us through the history of the English colonists arriving in 1584, 1585 and 1587. His main argument is that the 'Lost Colony' on Roanoke Island is in fact not of Roanoke and that, according to his study of primary sources of writings made at the time, the colonists actually arrived at Hatteras Island, where present day Buxton is. “This is really obvious from the description written as a place is described as being 20 miles long and surrounded by water to the North and South. If you look at a map it couldn't be anywhere else.”

Scott is a native of the area and his family can be traced back to the 1600's. He knows the area extremely well and has found sites for archaeological digs to take place - one of which was in November 2009 and was led by Dr Mark Horton (Bideford 500's patron) and his Bristol University archaeology students. Bideford's ex-Mayor Andy Powell was also there. Scott showed me some of the finds from that dig and some he had found himself. It was amazing to see, as quite clearly there are small pieces of North Devon Pottery – he showed me and explained how the sherds were found, literally laid on top of each other intermingled with sherds of native American pottery which he suggested proved that English and Native American people were co-existing together. What we don't know is whether the pottery was brought with the people who lived there or whether the pieces were traded and found their way to Buxton from another place. It was amazing to see these and hold them and bags of sherds were pulled out from a large black lidded box, all of which were excavated from Buxton at only about a foot and a half deep. What struck me is that as well as some sgrafitto-ware, with the tell-tale yellow creamy slip, there were also bagfulls of pieces of browny black glaze, exactly the same as I had seen by the bagful in Raleigh from the Brunswick Town dig. I was frustrated that I am not expert enough to identify thesherds but Dave took some good photos and we may be able to get some identification upon returning to Bideford.

It was a very fruitful visit and I plan to go back again before leaving Roanoke Island. This stuff was a real find and very exciting.

Seagrove and the Potteries – Mark Hewitt

Seagrove is a traditional Pottery area and has been since the 1700s. It is Americas largest community of working potteries and according to the map has about 90 potters working in the area.

It has a Gallery and Museum dedicated to the history of the Potteries and to showcase contemporary potters in the area. Its a good starting point to get a feel of a lot of potters' work and to help decide who to go and see.

I was looking for any signs of influence on their work from the North Devon slipware and sgraffito style – I couldn't see any from what was on show at the Gallery, though I did have a couple of leads already to go to New Salem pottery as they are producing sgraffito style jugs. Also, with no relationship to North Devon style but purely from an historical perspective Westmoore Pottery had been suggested as a place to visit by Tom Beaman as this family have been potting since the 18^th century.

First stop though was Mark Hewitt at Pittsborough, just outside of Seagrove. Again most people I had already met suggested to visit Mark. He is a Brit, married an American and settled in North Carolina about 25 years ago. It was fascinating to meet him and to see his studio, a place he found about 25 years ago, going for a song and with plenty of acreage to use to build a studio and pottery. Mark trained under Michael Cardew and is internationally known and renowned as a potter and is also very knowledgeable about the history of pottery in NC. He has also just co-written a book called the Potter's Eye and has written for Ceramics in America. He was working on a large pot when we arrived, so carried on talking to us whilst working at the wheel – at one point he got out a large blow torch and heated up his pot! Looked a bit drastic but it was to stop it getting too moist. Mark had some huge pieces on display outside and I had a look around his 2 wood fired kilns – one of which was the traditional shaped 'groundhog' kiln – its low in the ground one end where the wood fuel is fed and has a low ceiling, nothing like an upright bottle kiln however you can walk into. I had read about these back in Bideford and was amazed to see one in the flesh.

Mark was great, I think he enjoyed talking to some Brits as we got chatting about football as we left. He was also very generous and gave me a copy of his book and pointed me to some relevant copies of Ceramics in America that feature articles on North Devon Pottery.

I left with more knowledge, a real sense of having met a master potter and a friendly down to earth man. I also left with a wonderful mug that I purchased from Mark.

Below are pictures of Mark's groundhog kiln.